Letters to the Editor
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Regarding Healthcare, they are all talking points
Do you really think any Plan will be taken wholesale by:
1. All Healthcare workers from Surgeons to Nursing Homes
2. All Pharm and Medical Equipment Companies
3. All Insurance Companies and plans, from HMOs to PPOs to Catastrophic, Self Insured, Company Benefits, Private and Public sectors?
4. Wall Street, the Government, all Parties and the Public?
We need a focus on healthcare, and soon. However, anybody's "plan" is just a presentation, a jumping off point.
That's it. No one submits a business plan to a bank and creates a Fortune 1 in a year.
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re: Voting for Hillary and Proud of it!!
Me too. You rock. You said it better than I ever could have.
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to Hoisted
I am incredibly proud of us looking squarely in the eye at all issues that concern us including identities, the War, the economy, not agreeing and agreeing, arguing and coming together.
Welcome to a Citizenry that takes our charge seriously.
Just as in your Right Wing world, where how to keep governments in the wombs of women is serious business.
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The messages sent...
Here is my fear:
If Clinton gets the nomination, it will be seen as "Obama's just not ready yet - too green. Try again in 4 (or 8) years."
But if Obama gets the nomination, it will be seen as "Women just aren't fit, period."
Then, write that even larger in November.
It WON'T be seen as "just not THIS woman". It will be seen as "NO woman is capable."
Obama, why couldn't you have just WAITED four years? (said mostly tongue-in-cheek, but still)
I'm not affiliated with a party, and I haven't decided yet if I'm going to vote in this primary. Unlike Traister, I think there's nothing wrong with being "undecided" during the primary period - even right up until the last minute. Obama and clinton are very close in their positions on the issues. Come November, though, I don't see very many people biting their nails over whether to vote Republican or Democratic.
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GO WITH THE BEST QUALIFIED CANDIDATE-- ALWAYS
For weeks I have followed the pundits, the network news, the bloggers and the posters. Never have I seen such nasty, vitriol, distortions, outright lies against any candidate as I have against Senator Clinton. Yet, she still may win. That tells me that she deserves my vote for exhibiting unmatched grace and intellect, not to mention a remarkable grasp of the issues and problems, but the best policies for the country. She has withstood the abuse, yet has not wavered. Her strength is amazing.
My red flag has been the brutal attacks on Senator Clinton by surrogates and supporters of Senator Obama. They will not tolerate the smallest criticism or probing question of their candidate.
This behavior smacks of the campaigns and administration of George W. Bush. Every time a citizen, organization or members of Congress posed a question to Bush, his surrogates went loony nuts telling us we were un-patriotic, we dishonored the troops.etc. etc.
The battlecry worked among the media,(who still gives him a pass), the Democrats, the Congress and the citizens. We cringed, we gave in, we ceased to question. We became fearful. Defensive behavior for any reason is always suspect. Heed it.
I am truly gun shy because I do not know what Obama stands for, his speeches soar, but say little. I cannot buy it.
I know Senator Clinton is the best candidate, because over the course of decades I've been able to observe, watch and listen. She is standing tall and will make us proud as President Hillary Clinton. It is a priviledge to vote for this remarkable woman.
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Peeps
Identity politics are divisive, inflammatory, and ultimately bigoted. Democrats have used them for years as a way to attack others; now the chickens have come home to roost. That's irony, baby, and why every Republican should enjoy the hell of this article.
Also, I recommend letting someone who speaks fluent English edit your post next time.
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Everyone
is so sure they are right. That they just know what will save the republic or damn it. Wish I could know things like that with so much certainty. God-like knowledge . . . not human, like mine. I appreciate you sharing your honest doubt.
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Regarding Healthcare being talking points.
You're so wrong.
Health care margins are very thin. Half a day extended stay or a single lab for a medicare or HMO patient along with negotiated rates for "preferred providers" can mean losing money on the patient. That's how thin. The providers do definitely not make the hoardes of money people think when they read their bills. Rather, THEIR expenses are that high.
Today thousands of hospitals throughout the nation are struggling to even keep the doors open. Esp. in low income areas and municipal hospitals with no economies of scale. Gets worse and worse as the federal government which is definitively bankrupt with Bush's debts and refusal to tax the wealthy continously cut the reimbursements. (Thanks George Bush for 350-500 billion dollars of red ink a year and then tell yourself that it's unimportant to defeat John McCain or whomever the GOP contestant is).
Health care WILL be reformed because it has to be. The nation can NOT with all our debt now and aging population go on like this. Bush just announced he was cutting yet ANOTHER 190 billion out of medicare funds this fiscal year in his recent SOtUA, did you even listen?
So the real question is who reforms it. The heartless Republicans will just leave the middle-class to rot. Obama would just throw a few more pennies at the destitute.
HRC has an intelligent and workable plan that covers all of us AND addresses some of the underlying causes of medical inflation. This is your life, your future, how you will live It's not a slogan or a popularity contest. This is the real thing. No game.
PS - Healthcare workers are increasingly overtaxed and exhausted for less than glamorous wages. No more control over it than you do.
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Not really undecided about candidtaes
Dear Rebecca,
May I propose that you are not actually undecided as between the two Democratic Senators? Rather you are undecided about whether to do what you have already decided is right.
Having already decided that voting for Obama is the right the thing, you cast the question as "whether or not to vote for Hillary".
Here's your choice as you have implicitly presented it: do what you have already decided is right, (a vote for Obama), or what is expedient (a vote for a woman when you know it's wrong).
Doing what you know is right will require you to face down some self-image demons and to stand up to what others think. Doing what you know is wrong may take less immediate courage, but it will stunt you.
You are wrong when you imagine that either vote will hurt. Doing the right thing won't hurt -- because you will do the right thing only if you eschew contrived elements of self-image and take a step toward self-actualization. Being true to yourself will take courage but it will not hurt.
Facing what others will think of you will also require courage. There may be some pain, but there will be satisfaction.
Recent history highlights that we need the absolute best person for the Presidency that we can get. Yet you cast your "undecidedness" not in terms of which person is the best for the job, but in terms of which category you should support, taking a deflecting calculus so far as to consider an imagined bigot's sensibilities -- whether Obama is not so threatening because he will be seen merely "as an exceptional black man" rather than some "harbinger" of a black tide. In your "bigot calculus" though, "resentful white guys" will mobilize, viewing Clinton as opening the floodgates of "pushy broads". Consider what mental rabbitholes you've descended -- as evidenced by your "bigot calculus" -- to avoid the simple but tough choice of doing what you know is right.
Your admitted "refuge" in Edwards shows you know Clinton is not the right choice. For, if she were the right choice, you would have chosen her instead of "voting for the white guy." Why would the "white guy" be a refuge, but not the black guy? One might assume it's category politics, but the answer is actually that you could have voted for Edwards (your "protest vote") without facing the choice of doing the right thing.
You note that you expected the nomination would be tied up before you had to vote and, though you don't say it, you obviously expected Clinton would have it -- after all she has been the presumptive nominee for months. This would have freed you from voting for her. You could have cast the Edwards protest vote, thereby avoiding doing the right thing at the same time as avoiding facing your self-image and what others will think of you. If she were the right one, no protest would have been needed.
In conjuring the specter of your mother's and aunt's reactions, you mention the "fleeting opportunity" that Clinton's candidacy presents. So, what is that opportunity? Boiled down -- it's the opportunity to vote for a woman -- any woman. You know that is not enough. Let me quote you: "There is shame in voting for Hillary Clinton."
There is no shame in choosing a RIGHT candidate partly because she's a woman. The shame is in choosing the WRONG candidate partly because she's a woman.
You've clearly revealed that for you, Obama is the right choice. What you'll have to tussle with until Super Duper Tuesday is whether you will be true to yourself by doing what you've already decided is right. That takes courage and I respect that. I recommmend: do the right thing.
I'm pulling for you.
Best,
Rob